More than 37,000 sick days due to stress were recorded as being taken by staff in Yorkshire in 2017, community and hospital health workers NHS data shows.

The figure is an increase of almost one-third compared with 2013. The analysis, which includes acute NHS hospital trusts, mental health trusts and clinical commissioning groups, reveals that the biggest number of absences in 2017 was recorded by Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which lost 3,917 days to stress.

Mark Gwilliam, director of human resources at the trust in Sheffield, said the organisation had 17,000 employees and its sick days due to stress represented less than one per cent of the total number of days worked.

“We believe that for our staff to provide the best care to patients, we also need to take care of their health and wellbeing,” he said.

“We want to do all we can to help staff cope with any stress from work or home circumstances which is why we have a number of free services to offer support including a specialist psychological service, free headspace app for all employees and mindfulness sessions. We also try to make the work environment as supportive as possible to enable our teams to manage stressful situations.”

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust recorded the second highest number of sick days from stress or anxiety, at 3,505. Elsewhere, Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust had 2,437, while the region-wide Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust recorded 1,849.

Dean Royles, director of organisational development the NHS trust in Leeds, said: “Our staff are an incredible asset to our hospitals and to Leeds – they work extremely hard to provide world class hospital care 24 hours a day, every day to over 1.5m patients a year.

“Our aim is to be the best place to work so we can retain and attract staff and therefore workplace wellbeing is a priority for us. We provide personal resilience training as well as training for managers so they can effectively support people at risk of stress. Our teams also conduct targeted stress risk assessments and develop plans for managing and reducing stress.”

He said the trust had invested in wellbeing services, including health coaches, wellbeing champions, 24/7 counselling and emotional support from trained counsellors, over the last two years.

According to NHS Digital statistics, staff numbers at the Leeds trust have grown from 15,086 in 2013, to 17,750 at the end of 2017.

The analysis comes amid warnings that the NHS is now battling its most difficult winter period yet, as health workers across the country are fighting to keep up with demand and achieve national A&E waiting time targets.

The Health Foundation think-tank last month predicted that the NHS was on course between January and March 2018 to admit or discharge just 87 per cent of patients within four hours at emergency departments, against a target of 95 per cent, which would represent the worst quarterly performance since records began in 2004.

NHS raises fears over staff stress levels after sick days soar in Yorkshire